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The Samkhya System of the Bhagavata Purana - The Samkhya system of the Bhagavata Purana Basel, Peter Charles https://iro.uiowa.edu/discovery/delivery/01IOWA_INST:ResearchRepository/12730612790002771?l#13730812340002771 Basel, P. C. (2012). The Samkhya system of the Bhagavata Purana [University of Iowa]. https://doi.org/10.17077/etd.0vlj8m1z https://iro.uiowa.edu Copyright 2012 Peter Charles Basel Downloaded on 2021/09/24 19:45:11 -0500 - THE SĀṂKHYA SYSTEM OF THE BHĀGAVATA PURĀṆA by Peter Charles Basel A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in Asian Civilizations in the Graduate College of The University of Iowa July 2012 Thesis Supervisor: Professor Frederick M. Smith ` Graduate College The University of Iowa Iowa City, Iowa CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL ——————————————– MASTER’S THESIS —————— This is to certify that the Master’s thesis of Peter Charles Basel has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Master of Arts degree in Asian Civilizations at the July 2012 graduation. Thesis Committee: ———————————————-- Frederick M. Smith, Thesis Supervisor ———————————————— Morton Schlütter ———————————————— Maureen Robertson TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 Date and Contents of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa 3 History of Sāṃkhya 10 Summary of the Classical Sāṃkhya System 15 Other Influences 19 The Cosmology of the Kapilagītā 24 CHAPTER I. MAJOR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO SYSTEMS 27 The Place of God 27 Kapila 35 Puruṣa 47 Kāla 55 The Vyūhas 68 The Antaḥkaraṇa 78 CONCLUSION 84 BIBLIOGRAPHY 97 ii 1 INTRODUCTION The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is one the most popular and influential Sanskrit religious texts. Among the Purāṇic literature it occupies something of a unique and revered position as the primary religious document of Vaiṣṇava bhakti, or devotion; particularly devotion to Kṛṣṇa. Its popularity throughout South Asian history can be demonstrated from the overwhelmingly large number of manuscripts and commentaries as well as the number of translations into vernacular languages.1 This is particularly true of the tenth book of the text which is primarily concerned with Kṛṣṇa’s life. Though the text is commonly known today as one of the primary sources for the Kṛṣṇa stories, there is actually a great deal of speculative and theological material in the Bhāgavata, far more in fact than many of the other Purāṇas. A great deal of this material consists of some variation of the Sāṃkhya School of philosophy. Sāṃkhya is understood to be one of the six traditional darśanas of Hindu philosophy and though it has not always enjoyed as great of popularity as some of its rival schools, its influence can be seen in nearly every facet of Sanskrit literature. What is commonly referred to as the Classical Sāṃkhya philosophy is exemplified by the Sāṃkhyakārikas (2nd-3rd cent. C.E.) attributed to Iśvarakṛṣṇa, which present a dualistic and non-theistic system of philosophy. The version of Sāṃkhya that is found in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa does not conform to the details of the classical system, although it does share many elements in common. The Sāṃkhya of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa can be found in a number of places throughout the text, but its most systematic versions are found at 2.5, 3.5, 3.7, 3.26, and 1 Ludo Rocher, The Purāṇas, vol. 2.3 of A History of Indian Literature (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1986), 149-150. 2 throughout the eleventh book.2 The most prominent of these is probably 3.26, which is found within a larger section that is often referred to as the Kapilagītā, named after the traditional founder of the Sāṃkhya School. Though these are the principal places where the philosophy is given as a whole, this peculiar brand of Sāṃkhya is referenced throughout the text. When discussing the third book Dasgupta notes that “Kapila has been described as an incarnation of God, and the philosophy that is attributed to him in the Bhāgavata forms the dominant philosophy contained therein. All through the Bhāgavata the philosophy of theistic Sāṃkhya as described by Kapila is again and again repeated in different contents.”3 While it is certainly arguable whether or not the Bhāgavata’s form of theistic Sāṃkhya is the “dominant philosophy” of the text, there is no denying its conspicuously prominent role. It could easily argued that the central philosophy of the Bhāgavata is, in fact, devotion to God, specifically in the form of Vāsudeva-Kṛṣṇa, but there is no denying that the Sāṃkhya philosophy as presented in these sections forms the basic cosmological, and in many ways even theological, underpinning of the entire text. What is most fascinating about the version of Sāṃkhya that is given in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is the way in which it allows one to trace some of the influences that played major roles in the composition of the text. Although many of the Purāṇas contain Sāṃkhya material, in some cases quite a significant amount, the Bhāgavata presents a system that does not fully agree with any of them, but betrays a number of traces to quite a few other traditions. When these influences are traced a more complete understanding of the religious climate of the text’s composition may be reached. 2 Surendranath Dasgupta, Indian Pluralism, vol. 4 of History of Indian Philosophy (London: Cambridge University Press 1966), 26. 3 Ibid., 30. 3 Date and Contents of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa The Bhāgavata Purāṇa is generally considered to be one of the more recent of the Mahāpurāṇas. Though the Purāṇic literature is vast and was composed over an extended period of time eighteen of the Purāṇas are generally understood by the tradition to be the most ancient and the most authoritative. The list of these eighteen is far from agreed upon by all commentators and thus there are more than eighteen texts that might be considered Mahāpurāṇas, but it is this class of scriptures which are of concern here. The two most common lists of these texts are those given in the Viṣṇu and Matsya Purāṇas. The Viṣṇu Purāṇa gives the list as; Brahma, Padma, Viṣṇu, Śiva, Bhāgavata, Nārada, Mārkaṇdeya, Agni, Bhaviṣya, Brahmavaivarta, Liṅga, Varāha, Skanda, Vāmana, Kūrma, Matsya, Garuḍa, and Brahmāṇḍa. The list in the Matsya Purāṇa is nearly identical except that it replaces the Śiva with the Vāyu Purāṇa.4 The reasons for placing the Bhāgavata Purāṇa among the most recent of these has to do with its character as a text as well as a number of anachronistic statements within the text that serve as clues to both its date and origin. The first clue to the probable later dating of the Bhāgavata is that it is not mentioned by or quoted in any text until the 10th century. The first possible reference is a quotation by Abhinavagupta 10th-11th century C.E. in his commentary on the Bhagavadgītā, although this has been disputed.5 A text called the Bhāgavata is mentioned by Alberuni around 1030 C.E.6 This may very well refer to the same text, but as no other information about it 4 Freda Matchett, “The Purāṇas,” in The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, ed. Gavin Flood (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 133. 5 J.A.B. van Buitenen, “On the Archaism of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa,” in Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes, ed. Milton Singer (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1966), 26. 6 Edwin, F. Bryant, “The Date and Provenance of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa,” Journal of Vaiṣṇava Studies 11:1 Fall (2002): 53. 4 is given it is difficult to know for sure. There are also a number of commentaries that are roughly dateable, the earliest of which is that of Śrīdhara in the 14th century.7 This means the latest possible date of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa is well into the 11th or 12th centuries, a fairly late year for such a popular Purāṇa. There is some good evidence that the Bhāgavata might have actually been written earlier than this and that there are simply no surviving records of its existence until much later. This is quite plausible as there are references in the remaining commentaries to an older commentarial tradition which is no longer available.8 The date cannot be pushed back indefinitely though. The Bhāgavata appears to make reference to the Tamil Vaiṣṇava Āḻvārs; “In the Kali Age there will be devotees of Nārāyaṇa, O King, in great numbers everywhere in Tamil country.”9 Though the dates of the Āḻvārs are far from clear, there is good evidence that their work was completed by at least the eighth century and that most of them were not much earlier than this.10 As this verse does not appear to be a conspicuously late addition to the text the current version of the Bhāgavata probably cannot be earlier than the eighth or ninth century. The Bhāgavata also has been shown to be based on the Viṣṇu Purāṇa, a text was probably not written until somewhere in the range of 500-700 C.E.11 Dennis Hudson has also shown a great deal of evidence that the Vaikuṇṭha Perumāl Temple in Kanchipuram shows clear evidence of the Bhāgavata and 7 Rocher, 149. 8 Daniel P. Sheridan, “Śrīdhara and his Commentary on the Bhāgavata Purāṇa,” Journal of Vaiṣṇava Studies 2:3 (1994): 49. 9 Van Buitenen, “On the Archaism of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, 26. 10 Friedhelm Hardy, Viraha-Bhakti: The early history of Kṛṣṇa devotion in South India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), 488. 11 Ibid., 90. 5 since this temple was built around 770 C.E. the date of large parts of the text can be pushed back well into the 7th and 8th centuries.12 The question then becomes one of authorship. Who wrote the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, and why? One popular theory about the redactional history of the Bhāgavata is stated as follows, “The Śrīmad Bhāgavata has three phases of development.
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